


A Job To Do

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Firefighter Dean, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-13 09:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7972525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's just a regular fireman, really. Just wants to do his job and go home safe at the end of the night. But when people start mysteriously disappearing in house fires, he's gonna have to step up and figure out what the hell is going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1/10/2016: I updated the summary, as I realised the story's moving away from what I originally intended when I wrote said summary.

The alarm blares so suddenly that Gordon upends the table he, Dean, and Bobby were playing cards on, sending it crashing to the floor. The alcohol from their now-smashed cups bleed into the cards, wrecking nearly the whole deck, but the former occupants of the table are already racing to suit up and don’t notice it.

“732 Bletchley Avenue,” Victor shouts at them over the blaring of the fire truck’s alarms. “House fire—and reports say it’s a bad one. Minor explosion, but the fire promptly escalated and has become a danger to neighbouring houses.”

Dean’s jaw tightens. In all five of his years working as a firefighter, he’s come to realise that many explosions are due to unsavoury actions of so-called victims, but he swallows his opinions and gives a short nod to show Victor he’s listening.

Despite what he thinks, it isn’t his concern about who did what and why’s and how’s concerning this fire. His only concern—his only _job_ —is to put it out and limit the damage as much as possible to avoid the carnage to spread to neighbouring homes. The police will figure out the nitty-gritty stuff after that.

After a couple of minutes, they start to see the thick billow of smoke rising into the air only a few streets away. More alarms wail in the distance. Dean can’t tell if they’re the police, the ambulances, or other fire trucks from neighbouring stations rushing in to assist in any way they can.

Once they arrive, it’s go-go-go-go. Assess the fire, grab the hoses, keep curious bystanders from getting too close, and do their best to put out the fire.

“It was just a kitchen fire!” someone shouts hysterically. “That’s all it was, I swear! How was I supposed to know you’re not supposed to throw water on a grease fire? I was panicking, I wasn’t thinking straight!”

That must be the owner of the house, Dean thinks. If what the man’s saying is true, then it’s nothing more than a tragic mistake. His chest clenches and there’s a wash of pity flooding through his veins. Nobody deserves to lose everything over a mistake.

“Bill, where’s Lily?” someone else, a woman, cries. When she sprints across the lawn, Dean notices she has a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her face is streaked with soot. A worried paramedic hurries after her. “I can’t find her! Where’s Lily?”

“Ma’am,” asks a police officer gently. “Who is Lily?”

“She’s our daughter!” the woman shouts. “Lily? _Lily_! Where are you, sweetie?”

“I don’t remember her coming down the stairs when I called!” Bill shouts.

“ _Where’s my baby, Bill_?”

“Dean, aim the hose a bit higher!”

Dean realises he’s dropped the nozzle a bit so it isn’t pouring through the shattered upper-level window and onto the flames inside, but rather bouncing off the wall just below it. Chastising himself for getting distracted, he fixes his grip on the hose. He has his job. If there is someone inside who needs saving, it’s not up to him to do it.

In the end, Dean’s not entirely sure who ends up running in. As soon as they blast their way through the front door, a section of the house above it breaks off and crashes to the ground, blocking the exit. Several onlookers scream in horror.

“Matthew, get back here!” Victor shouts uselessly. “God damn it!”

Dean aims the hose at the burning debris. Another chunk of the roof falls off and lands on the debris, and the fire roars in response. Matthew—a man Dean’s never shared more than a couple of words with at a time—won’t be coming back through there.

Why’d that dumb sonofabitch do it? Just looking at the place, it’s easy to see that going inside there now is nothing short of suicide. Dean shakes his head, clearing his mind of negative thoughts. He has a job to do, so he’s gonna do it. Anything that happens between now and the moment the last flicker of flame goes out is none of his business whatsoever. Just gotta do his god damn job.

“Look! Up there, up there!” someone from the crowd of people littering the streets shouts, and suddenly there’s a cacophony of screams.

Matthew appears in the upper window, dangling the trapped child out. Several firemen rush forward, arms outstretched, and only when they’re in a good position does Matthew let the child go. The girl—Lily, wasn’t it?—screams shrilly, but she’s caught safely by two firemen, one of whom lets go whilst the other rushes her over to a nearby ambulance. She’s covered head to toe in soot but otherwise appears miraculously uninjured. Her sobbing parents hasten to catch up, stumbling over themselves in relief.

“Get out of there!”

“Come on, Matthew, get out!”

“The whole damn building is gonna collapse. What’re you waiting for?”

Startled, Dean turns his attention back to the house. Not everyone is out of the woods yet.

Matthew is attempting to climb out the window. However, his weight is proving too much for the rapidly weakening frame; it collapses. Matthew wobbles and then falls back into the house with a wild yell, arms flailing.

Another fireman attempts to run into the house—Nick, presumably. He and Matthew are buddies, nigh inseparable—but he’s caught and dragged back. Can’t risk losing anyone else to this fire. It’s up to Matthew to secure his own survival because nobody else can do it. It’s just too dangerous.

Minutes pass, and there’s still no sign of him. Dean bites his lip, squinting through the gush of smoke in the hopes of seeing any sign of life inside, but there’s nothing to see. Adrenaline pulses through his veins, filling him with a strange desire to _do_ something. To go in there too, and pull Matthew out. But that’s stupid. He doesn’t, and will never, do things like that. He _can’t_.

After ten minutes, they all come to a grief-stricken realisation that Matthew’s dead. If he could’ve gotten out, he would have by now. They’ll now be searching for his body amongst the charred wreckage once they put the fire out and secured the area.

Not a one of them speaks until the fire is out.

 

* * *

 

Dean gets home late that night. As he proceeds through the house, he kicks off his shoes, pulls down his pants, yanks his shirt over his head, drops the keys somewhere and can’t be bothered to pick them up, before he crawls into bed clad in only his boxers. He’s too tired for a shower, but also too keyed up to fall asleep quickly.

He stares up at the ceiling, arms tucked under his head, thinking.

He’s glad he’s not the one who has to deal with delivering the news of Matthew’s death to his family. The news that Matthew would be lauded as a hero for saving the life of a little girl wouldn’t make the family’s pain any less sharp. No matter the good that came out of Matthew’s sacrifice, he’s still dead no matter what.

There’s not even a body to bury; the fire burned for a long time, and Matthew’s remains were nothing but ashes by the time they put out the fire and determined - after a long while - that the house was safe enough to enter. An empty coffin will be put into the ground. A headstone will declare that this is Matthew's final resting place, even if he'll never get the chance to lie within this earth. They'll all be comforted by a lie.

Yeah, Dean’s definitely glad he’s not higher up on the chain of command to have to deal with this mess.

What’s even worse is the fact that Dean feels like he should’ve done something more than what he did. The urge to run into the house had inexplicably been there, but that’s stupid. He, Dean Winchester, doesn’t do crazy shit like that.

It had been a burning sensation in his gut, a tightening of the muscles in his legs, that urged him to run into that house. He’d been about to, then he’d stopped. Why? Why would he ever do something that stupid? It was a suicide-run no matter how one looked at it—Matthew’s death is proof enough.

Even now, he senses that he could have done more—should have done more—than man the hose at a safe distance. What happened isn’t his fault, yet he feels like it is—somehow, the blame rests on his shoulders. At least that’s what his instincts are telling him. But why? What did he do wrong?

Punching his pillow, Dean shuffles around until he’s lying in a semi-comfortable position. Forcing those negative thoughts out of his head, he lies perfectly still until he drifts into an uneasy sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean walks into work the next day with a pounding headache and little desire for human interaction. He’d slept fitfully the entire night and feels like he left some vital part of him back in that bed. Oh well, he’s being paid to be here.

“Hey, Dean,” says Bobby, making a vague hand gesture meant to be taken as an additional form of greeting. “You look like shit, kid.”

Dragging a rough hand down his face, Dean says, “Uh yeah, Bobby, of course I am, someone just d—” He stops himself, because something’s not right here.

“Someone just what, Dean?”

Dean frowns, and a tingle of something (fear? Unease?) rolls down his spine like a cold chill. “You’re not as stressed or upset as you were yesterday. Man, you bounce back quick.”

Indeed, Bobby looks perfectly fine. Last night, he’d been a wreck; red-rimmed eyes, hair standing on end from where he’d run his hands through it too many times. He’d slouched when he walked, like he carried a great burden on his shoulders.

“Bounce back quick from what?” Bobby peers at Dean like he’s worried for his health or sanity—which is fucking rude, given the circumstances. “Boy, you alright?”

“I should be asking you that,” says Dean. “Aren’t you still upset about Matthew?”

Now Bobby looks downright afraid. “Matthew? Who the heck is Matthew? What’re you talkin’ about, Dean?”

“Ha, ha. Nice joke, Bobby. A little inappropriate, given the timing, but I can appreciate it. Now get serious.”

“Dean, I dunno any Matthew. If this is one of your little friends, then I’m sorry for whatever shit he’s goin’ through, but I ain’t about to cry for some idjit I’ve never met.” Bobby shakes his head, bewildered, and adds, “Just go take some painkillers or somethin’, you’re confused or some shit.”

He claps Dean on the shoulder and walks away.

Instead of getting those aforementioned painkillers, Dean heads straight for the nearest computer. A fire that big with a casualty attached will definitely pull up some results on Google. No journalist worth their salt would miss reporting on it.

Only there’s nothing.

Out of desperation, Dean searches up combinations of words, but he gets nothing. No fire, no deaths, no distraught family. Nada.

Did Dean dream it all up? Is that the reason he feels so tired today, because he’d had a nightmare last night? Is that what happened?

In a split second, Dean’s world has shifted on its axis and thrown out of orbit. He must be losing grip on reality or something. Is this what going crazy feels like?

He remembers to delete his search history (if Bobby’s reaction is anything to go by, other people are likely going to be a little more than just concerned), then shuts the computer down and tries to busy himself with maintenance checks on all the equipment. That’ll take a few hours off of his shift if he’s thorough enough.

No matter how busy he is, his mind wanders back to the night before—or, at least, what he _thinks_ is the night before. There’s something really not right here. It sets him on edge. It gives him this weird urge to do something, although he’s not sure what. In all his life, he’s never experienced anything like this.

When he goes home that evening after a long, boring shift, he still hasn’t shaken the feeling the feeling of foreboding. Not even Dr. Sexy makes him feel better, and so he pauses the episode in the middle of Dr. Sexy and yet another female co-worker making out in the lifts like their lives depend on it.

And if Dr. Sexy can’t cure Dean’s awful mood, that’s how he knows it’s really bad.

 

* * *

 

 

He gets the call in the middle of the night, just two hours after he fell asleep.

“Dean,” says Bobby without so much as a greeting. “Get your ass down here, we’ve got another fire and we’re short-staffed.”

Dean’s up and out of bed in an instant, running around in the dark to find his uniform and boots. “I’m on it, Bobby. Tell me where it’s at.”

Turns out the fire is a mere three streets away from the first house. Dean’s stomach ties itself into knots when he realises he has to drive past the first house to get to the new fire. At least he’ll be able to see what’s become of the property since the other day.

He rushes out of the house and into the car. When he pulls out of the driveway, he drives at roughly five kilometres over the speed limit.

He doesn’t slow down as he passes the house from the other night, but he’s not going so fast that he can’t survey the damage on his way past—except, there’s no damage. The house is pristine, not a speck of soot or a scorch mark in sight. The lights are on, and Dean sees a silhouette flit past one of the front windows.

It’s like what happened the other night never happened at all.

 _Not important right now,_ Dean reminds himself firmly. Right. There’s a fire elsewhere in town and Bobby needs him; _that’s_ where he needs to be. _That’s_ what he needs to be worried about.

He speeds off, and try as he might, he still can’t banish the unease entirely.

“Dean, ya idjit!” Bobby roars once Dean pulls up. “The hell have you been, boy?”

“Sorry,” says Dean. “Traffic.”

A lie, but whatever. If it gets him out of trouble, he’ll roll with it. Bobby immediately dismisses him to go and suit up, and Dean does so without preamble.

The house is much like the last; up in flames, no chance of salvaging anything. Except there’s no distraught family on the front lawn; a couple of stoners sit on the grass, staring blankly up at the flames as paramedics wrap blankets around their shoulders. They hardly seem to comprehend what it is they’re seeing.

Dean grabs another hose and reels it out, flagging down another fireman called Nathan to help him. The fire’s so strong that the two hoses already operating won’t be enough to get the blaze under control.

When he aims the hose at one of the upper windows, he spots something in the corner of his eye. The window across from the one Dean’s pointing the hose at is dark. Not from smoke, but for the simple fact that the fire hasn’t reached that portion of the house yet (although it’s only a matter of time). And in the window, Dean sees a man.

“Oi,” he whispers, shocked. And then he shouts, “Oi, there’s someone still in there!”

Nathan frowns and says, “What?”

Dean points at the window. “There’s a man in there, dude.”

A pause, and then—“Holy shit, man.” The hose goes slack behind Dean, and before he can comprehend what’s happening, Nathan’s running inside.

“What the hell?” Dean snaps. “Wait!”

But Nathan doesn’t wait. The night ends on a similar note as the last.

And Dean doesn’t know what the fuck is happening, but his instincts are screaming at him that something’s up. He just doesn’t know what.


End file.
